81–90 of 94 posts
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_age_of_Jewish_culture_i... I have to find the letter (possibly a Jewish reader can dig it out?) but I remember reading and being amused by a letter penned by Maimonides to iirc Jews in Arabian peninsula. Apparently they had written to him having heard of the paradise of tolerance in Muslim Spain and his letter poo pooing it, telling them it’s no better than their locale. I always…
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Religious flamewar is not ok here, and please don't post in the flamewar style to HN generally. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37349887 .
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Responding to a request like this by doing more of the same (not just here, but https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37355127) is not a good look, so please stop.
Edit: it looks like you've been using HN primarily for political and ideological battle. We ban accounts that do that, regardless of what they're battling for or against (see https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme... for past explanations of why). Fortunately it doesn't look like you've been doing this exclusively, but we need you to stop if you want to keep posting here. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.
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Historically, Islamic philosophers (as they were then called) took works from the greek philosophers before them and expanded upon it. Then a few other philosphers who did not like people learning from non-muslims leaned hard into fundamentalism and you now have the kind of Islam (Salafist/Wahhabism) that exists today, e.g. Saudi Arabia The Mongols opened the door to fundamentalism, but it didn't have to go that way.…
Yes. But we stopped studying the Greeks for a long time and had no paper. So we could not distribute copies of Greek works until paper was introduced here, and until we had those copies. That trend, that lasted a long time, ended with the help of the Islamic civilization influence, with the arrival of paper and translated copies of the works you are talking about. They were studying them. We were not. Our copies come…
A big influence for sure, but that claim is a stretch.
Look at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boethius https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_books#Middle_Ages
A podcaster I listen to said something that stuck with me. He doesn’t care who invented the light bulb. That would’ve happened anyway. What’s way more interesting is events that could’ve completely changed human history. Like if Julius Caesar lost in Gaul or the Persians had defeated the Greeks or the Mongols had invaded Europe. On that list had to be what if Islam had spread throughout Europe? It very much could’ve…
For much of Europe, it did. If you take a look at the maps of various Islamic empires, there remains a fairly small part of Europe that was never ruled by them. Practically speaking, what is called 'Europe' today are just the parts that were never conquered, or were later retaken. The rest we call e.g. Turkey.
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The rules apply regardless of religion, as anyone can verify for themselves: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... . Responding to a request like this by doing more of the same (not just here, but https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37355127 ) is not a good look, so please stop. Edit: it looks like you've been using HN primarily for political and ideological battle. We ban accounts that do…
That said, if you have to defend yourself you dun did mess up. Add on you don't think I add to the community, and I that I don't want to make a community worse for my presence I'll refrain from further posting.
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Sucked that they did that. But they were there for centuries; their kids didn't do it. If Moorish descendents are bereft of virtue owing to the sins of their fathers, does the same apply to the descendents of the European invaders of America?
I read condemnation on this site every day against Europeans/Americans because of things done in the past that we were not a part of. Yes, a social structure similar to Jim Crow in the USA should be condemned not celebrated as being tolerant or some mythical place. It was not a good culture, it was not kind. Islam only allowed enslavement on non-muslims. Nice 'tolerance'. You shouldn't enslave people, and my people w…
I think you need to touch grass, friend. Dehumanization of the infidels is what allowed Moors to enslave Europeans. Take care not to become their mirror image.
Ah yes the beautiful myth of the Andalusian Paradise. Turns out it's probably just a myth. For a different historic take I recommend https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Andalusian-Paradise-Christians-M...
This book was published by Regnery in their ISI Books line and if you look at the rest of their catalog ( https://www.regnery.com/books/isi-books/ ) there's a certain theme that's overwhelming. To be slightly more explicit, when so many of their other books are so obviously by and for right wing culture warriors, why would they have published this one if it was not? (And if you look outside that particular imprint th…
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" Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity. " " Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents. " " Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith. " https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://www.reddit.com/r/Blackout2015/comments/4ylml3/reddit...
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Read the book. Preservation of knowledge was done by the Byzantine empire not the Arabs.
A part of the ancient Latin and Greek literature has been preserved by the Byzantine Empire and another part by the Arabs. The Arabs actually had much more interactions with the Western Europeans than the latter had with the Byzantines, so much more old books have reached Europe through the Arabs. Most Byzantine books have reached Europe only after the Fall of Constantinople and the invention of the movable-type prin…
And “algorithm” too, named after the scientist Al-Khwarizmi
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Note that there was about 9 centuries between the Umayyad conquest of Iberia (8th century) and the explulsion of Moriscos (17th century). So the analogy with North American natives would be something like - if somehow the Native Americans win political/military control in the 23th century (9 centuries after the arrival of the Europeans) and then decide that all non-native Americans will have to leave the country to w…
From the native perspective that would absolutely be justified. At the same time from the European perspective they should resist being expelled (just as the equivalent people in Spain should have and probably did resist being expelled in their time). As a side note, I feel a lot of people have a hard time processing conflicting perspectives and instead project their own moral views as a uniform perspective onto ever…
Thanks for putting into words something I've been feeling for a long time! It's like people think that conflict is unnatural, when really it is one of the most fundamental aspects of nature.